


Return to Me

by CaptainLaserBeam



Series: The TickTock Chronicles [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Actually kinda fluffy, Airships, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst, Clockpunk, Clocks, Cyborgs, Developing Relationship, Dystopia, Gay Robots, Legends, M/M, Mechanics, Mentions of organ transplants, Mythology - Freeform, Origin Myths, Post-War, Pre robot/man porn, Robots, Steampunk, Urban Legends, cockblocking suspenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 02:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20056213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLaserBeam/pseuds/CaptainLaserBeam
Summary: Sam Winchester is missing, and that isn't even the worst of Dean's current problems.His clock is about to run out of time.So Dean goes to the only place, the only person he can think of, who can help him.Which isn't even a person at all.





	Return to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the same universe as TickTock. You don't necessarily have to read it first, or at all, but it would make a lot of things make more sense if you did.  
In super short; alternate Steampunk universe where Dean and Sam are a team of mechanic/scientist who hunt ghosts/demons on the side, and Castiel is a robot that belongs to a wealthy, famous inventor's family.
> 
> Plot ensues.

“Hello Dean.”

Castiel stared with that open, penetrating gaze that had been so captivating when they'd first met, weeks ago, in the Winchester Bros' front lobby. It was difficult to read, especially now that Dean knew he wasn't biological, but the temptation not to interpret human emotion was difficult to process because of how alive he seemed. How human. There were so many obvious signs that pointed to Castiel being a TickTock now that he knew, so many things about him that were 'other', but something still felt different from any other machine that Dean had ever come across before. Something that was disarming, that urged him to trust, even when every learned instinct was telling him to rethink otherwise. 

They'd never hunted synthetics, not unless they were part of the job, but one had never been an actual target like a human being could be. There were rules in place to prevent things like that. Dean absently rubbed a hand across his aching chest, trying to ignore the overall threat of his current predicament to get to the task at hand.

As if to bring his thoughts out in the open, there was an obvious hesitation, a very human one, as Castiel regarded him. Like he was internally debating what he could or could not share with Dean instead of the other way around. Dean felt his agitation rise, the hairs across the backs of his arms shivering with gooseflesh at the idea that this machine's CPU was actually processing and reprocessing the likelihood of his odds, probably down to the exact percentage. 

Sam was _missing_, damnit, and Dean didn't care what kind of secrets this TickTock had been sworn to keep, he needed to find his brother, and he needed to do it yesterday.

“You know something about all this.” Dean said evenly, and Castiel didn't bother to respond in the positive or negative, his unblinking stare shifting from Dean's chest up to his face like he _knew_. It was unnerving, how openly those blue, mechanical eyes scanned over him, like he was memorizing every inch, or contemplating an enigma.

“Yes. I cannot promise that it will assist in your pursuit, but there are details of our relationship that you are, as of yet, unaware.”

“Our relationship?!” Dean choked, his chest constricting as he reached reflexively for his suspenders and slid his fingers just a hair too fast along the rough nylon. He allowed the slight friction burn and took a steadying breath. “Look, sir, we've met the one time. You came to me for help, as a- a business transaction, and I helped you. That was it, that's all it's ever been. The only reason I'm here now is because I heard, through a long and tedious series of inquiries, that you know more about this symbol than anyone else does. It's coincidence and coincidence alone.” 

Dean couldn't maintain eye contact any longer, it was getting too exhausting and he couldn't keep the sense of urgency tamped down long enough to hold himself still. He paced, instead, wishing for all the world that he was back in his home, surrounded by the familiar, everyday smell of chemicals and Sam. Safety, Sam, his steadying rock, his _key_, his everything.

The clean, overly neat, and ridiculously expensive décor that was bordering and closing in on all sides was claustrophobic. It was like being trapped in a museum where touching anything, including the floor, might get him beaten or arrested at any time. Dean was starting to quickly reevaluate coming back to this place, no matter the cost.

“Mr. Winchester-”

“Dean.”

“Dean, I appreciate your difficult perspective in this matter, I am not implying a lack of willingness to offer assistance. If you follow me, I think we may be able to approach your problem with the intent to solve it, the first step of which is misinformation. If you will?” 

Castiel canted his head to the side, offering a direction as an invitation and Dean couldn't help but draw his gaze back to him. It was hard to keep a separation of what was mechanical and what wasn't human with this man, and Dean wondered how much longer it would be before he forgot he was a TickTock entirely. Did it matter if he did? He didn't consider himself bigoted or discriminatory, he knew how important and smart they were, how amazing they could be, how one had even been a part of his small family once, so very long ago. Why was he trying so hard to label it now? Why was he being purposely obtuse about it?

Dean stomped forward inelegantly, his boots whacking loudly on the pristine, marble floor as Castiel fell into step beside him with his own, gentle clicks.

The mansion seemed just as cavernously empty as the last time he'd been there, without a single other face in sight, or a sound of life coming from any of the many doors they passed. Dean was curious, because of course he was, it was the home of a few generations of famous mechanics and inventors, but he didn't allow himself to linger at any of the open opportunities as he passed them. 

A few of the rooms seemed to be filled with mechanical wonders that, even at a glance, Dean had never seen before. Things that Sam would have gone completely bonkers to get his hands on, but the thought of Sam pushed Dean forward and away from his curiosity better than a bucket of ice water. He was here for a reason, and it wasn't chronautical discovery, the rooms full of junk could stay full of em. Time was leaking from between his fingertips faster than he could afford.

They walked in silence, Castiel's hands behind his back as he stepped in perfect tandem with Dean's clunky, bow legged boot stomps. It was strangely in sync, and didn't feel forced, like it was something that they'd always done, even if this was only the second time they'd ever really seen each other.

A flash of memory drifted through the back of Dean's mind of a portrait, hung somewhere in the maze of the mansion that he couldn't have made it back to if he'd tried, and he wondered just how true their dissociation really was. How much of himself that Castiel was actually seeing around the strange, mirrored imprint of his likeness to a ghost. It had to be a coincidence, of more than just the resemblance, but weirder things had happened to the Winchester's, after all.

Weirder things had happened to Dean.

A sudden warmth stopped Dean in his tracks and he looked down in alarm to see a pale hand on his chest, the well tailored, navy blue cuff of Castiel's arm restraining him from moving further forward. He panicked for a moment, usually carefully aware of anything that got anywhere near that part of him, and then confused himself that it didn't seem to bother him all that much that Castiel's fingers were there. The familiar echoes of fire and pain raised up his spine, as it always did whenever the trauma of his past was summoned, but it wasn't enough this time to bring it to play. Something kept it tamped down, and Dean didn't dare look a gift horse in the mouth in case he might risk summoning it again.

His thoughts abruptly pulled back to the present as Castiel removed his hand, and he realized belatedly that they were standing before a large set of closed, metal doors. 

Dean blinked, looking at Castiel with a polite apology ready on his lips at nearly walking his dumb face into something expensive, but the TickTock seemed uninterested in niceties. His other hand was already reaching forward with an ornate looking key that was unhooked from a chain from the inside of his breast pocket. It was silver, and beautiful, twisted with gears and decorated with a set of brass wings that rotated as Castiel inserted it into the lock of the door and he twisted it roughly with purpose.

Dean stared for a moment, watching with interest as he realized that it was darker in the part of the hallway they stood than the rest of the house had been. Less clean, less polished, probably less used. The door itself was unremarkable aside from looking like it was made of thick, ancient steel plates and bolts, and as the key turned, the sound of rotating clicks and gears suddenly sprung to life in a cacophony of repercussion all around them.

Castiel stood before the door in absolute patience, as if he could do it forever, but Dean took a step back, looking all around him as the door sounded like it was coming to life from everywhere. The floor, the walls, the support beams; inching out piece by piece, clinking together and shifting in veins away from the heart of the door itself. That small, ornate key had begun a sequence of events that started one motion which led into another and another, but there was nothing to actually _see_, clacking into place and initiating into a hundred small motions that were behind and beneath the walls. It was completely invisible, but for the vibration and the sound. 

The entire dramatic symphony was completely unnerving without visibility, but Castiel didn't move, his gaze focused on the key itself until the wings finally stopped rotating and then they folded in, settling solidly against the rod and then shunting inward, disappearing into the door. 

Dean held his breath, his impatience somehow suspended as he tried not to think of what else was hidden beneath the walls of this house. It was enormous, spanning at least an acre and rising three stories, possibly going deeper into the ground. It was the home of a famous chrononaut, afterall, something he'd either forgotten or hadn't bothered to give much thought to, and if the man had been intelligent enough to invent walking, talking TickTocks...

“The note you were given, you said there was a seal?” Castiel asked suddenly, apropos of nothing, and Dean blinked, trying to keep abreast of the conversation and the environment at the same time. As the door loudly clanked open, it was getting more and more difficult to maintain the illusion of undivided attention.

“Uh, yeah- yeah there was, uh...on the back of the envelope, a seal I didn't recognize. An L and an M over top each other, with uh-” He paused, realizing a little belatedly that he wasn't sure if he should continue. There had been wing on the seal, surrounding the two letters and framing them, the stylized feathers creepily similar to the key that Dean had just seen Castiel pull out of his breast pocket and push into a giant, steam-cranked, interlocking, gear-hidden door. He swallowed hard, suddenly more unsure than he'd been a few minutes ago, which was really saying something. This entire endeavor was not going where he'd initially anticipated.

'Wings. The seal had wings, I presume.” Castiel finished for him.

Before he realized it, a strong hand was on his back and Dean had been ushered swiftly from the hallway into an open room. The door swung shut behind them and clanked heavily into place, making a loud series of clacking and tonking noises before grinding itself suddenly to an echoing halt, leaving everything in silence. Castiel reached forward and took the silver key from a hole on the opposite side, which was now wooden, simply carved, and looked like it could have been a doorway from the inside of Dean's own house.

In fact, Dean suddenly felt like he'd walked through some kind of time portal.

Completely separate from the rest of the swanky, high class mansion, the room that Castiel had just unlocked like it was protecting all of the gold in the military, was about the size of a modest apartment. It was barely furnished. There was nothing shining or incredible, it was just an unimpressive bedroom. No half finished inventions or mechanical pieces strewn about, nothing like one would expect from the quarters of an inventor.

Because that's probably what this was, and Dean recognized that so easily that it made him dizzy. This was the bedroom of a dead billionaire. There was a bed with a colorful, worn, warm looking, hand made quilt surrounded by soft pillows, four poster frames with notches in the wood like they'd been marked with the growth of a child. Twin, unpolished highboys framed a single, frosted window, both chestnut and warm and looking like they'd been used the way they'd been made to be. 

An escritoire stood solitary on the far wall and was obviously where the room's occupant had spent the majority of their time. The wall behind it was some sort of blackboard, different from the dull wallpaper that covered the remaining three walls, but also wiped completely clean with swirls of old, soapy paths from it's last scrubbing. 

Dean felt his vision fuzz over, and it was suddenly completely covered, from the floor to the ceiling, with paper, sketches, formulas and isometric equations. Drawings in multiple mediums were littered everywhere, from pencil and ink to charcoal and paint, plastered to the wall and the desktop and often overlapping each other. Drawing instruments were strewn everywhere, without any sort of organization or care, like they'd been tossed half haphazardly and forgotten before being swiped back up again in a frenzy of motion and inspiration. Crumpled up, half ideas torn and tossed, piles and fits of frustrated, failed ideas.

Dean could almost see it, the person who'd once sat here, furiously scribbling away. Pulling paper after paper before himself, grabbing chalk and scribbling relentlessly across the wall, and continuously disappointed in what he produced. He tried desperately, day and night, to put to the page what was running through his mind that would not let him eat, rest, or quantify himself until he'd created exactly what his hands were aching to produce. He was a young man, alone, so familiar, a ghost, sitting at the old escritoire in a simple, beaten chair. He was frustrated, but inspired, hands covered in dark smears of lead as the lines flowed easily into what would become the blueprints to something so completely beyond him, beyond everything, that it would change the way the world functioned forever...

“Dean.”

Dean startled, blinked, and the ghost was gone.

He turned his head and Castiel was so close it was jarring, brilliant blue eyes mere inches away from his own, as if he was searching for something that he needed to be closer in which to find. Dean took a step away, the spell broken, his eyes moving around the small room and realizing that the escritoire was still completely clean. A chair was tucked neatly beneath it, drawing implements settled against the edges and left bare across the top. Wall blank. It looked completely wrong, to be so clean, but Dean had never been here before. What he'd seen in his head, the blueprints, the mess, none of it had been real.

“I..sorry- I don't-” Dean swallowed, clearing his throat and trying hard to cover for himself. What the hell was wrong with him? He dragged his knuckles back across his chest.

“This is a safe place.” Castiel's tone had changed and Dean looked back at him as if he was seeing the man he'd once met before. Before he'd known what he was, when they were holding down a haunted TickTock and forcing the angry spirit to vacate the unwilling host. He wasn't sure how Castiel made it so easy, when his programming was all he had to appear human and most others were limited in that regard.

The room did feel safe, as chagrined as Dean was to admit it, and completely different from the rest of the house. He had a vague inkling as to who it belonged to. But Sam was counting on him, they were counting on each other, and if Dean could buy any sort of time enough to find him, he was going to need something first.

“Okay. Alright, so- yes. The seal had an L and an M and it was framed by these fancy wings. I'm familiar with pretty much all of the military seals, it wasn't one of em, and the snob district isn't exactly secretive when it comes to flaunting their wealth, so their calling cards are usually pretty obvious. They like the common folk to remember their place, so they're never this cloak and dagger. Mercenaries are weirdly similar, but- we haven't had any run-in's with them since...well, since our family got all friendly-like with a few airship hunters. The less said about that is probably the better. After that, I'm at a loss.”

Admitting what he knew was both relieving and exposing a vulnerability, neither of which Dean was used to, nor comfortable in doing. Especially with a near stranger. Even more so with a TickTock. The way Castiel was standing in the room, even with his fancy clothing and his flawless, porcelain skin, he looked like he belonged there. Like some kind of weight of responsibility had been lifted from him just by walking through that ridiculous door, and he was comfortable, but the voice in Dean's head was adamant that he remember what he was looking at. Not human, _not human_.

“Look, I appreciate you giving me the time of day, but aside from bringing me back to this- this footman's closet, I really don't see the relevance in helping me find-”

“I do not idly bring anyone anywhere, Dean.”

The words were spoken softly, but enough that they took the words from Dean's lips like a repedograph, and it stole his breath along with it. Images shifted behind him in the periphery of Dean's vision, the imprints of large, wing-like shapes looming behind Castiel and casting their shadows upon the walls as if they'd been there the entire time, just out of sight. 

The room was cursed or spellbound, it had to be, why else would he continue to see such strange illusions the moment he walked through the door?

“What is this place?”

It wasn't the question he'd wanted to ask, it wasn't even any of his business, not even close, but he couldn't hold it back anymore. Castiel's expression shifted slightly, and it was terrifying, because those miniature expressions looked so human and mournful and gut-wrenchingly sad.

“The chambers of the Righteous Man.”

“The Righteous...Montarey Villiford the First, right? He was The Righteous Man, that's what's they carved across his mausoleum.” It was less than tactful to point out the obvious, but also common knowledge. The founding father of Synthetics was the patron saint of the developing world, even Sam referred to him by that weird pseudo name. Everyone acted like he'd been an untouchable mechanical genius, smarter than God and craftier than any inventor that had ever lived.

The room, on the other hand-

“Yes. He spent most of his time here. Took his meals here. Slept alone.”

“He never married?”

“No, do you not know the history?”

“It's not exactly info I needed to know, sorry. Sam probably does, but-” He wasn't sure why he was apologizing for not knowing a dead guy's personal life, but the large-eyed sad look seemed to be fighting for a permanent fixture across Castiel's face. As if sensing the scrutiny, the TickTock suddenly blanketed his expression, turning towards one of the highboys and sliding open a drawer. 

It was then that Dean realized that he didn't see a single streak of dust anywhere, no matter what corner of the room he gazed. It had been well kept. Well _loved_, long after it had been vacated. He wondered if any of his descendants even knew or cared that it was still here.

“Is this what you saw?”

Dean's eyes snapped to attention, Castiel holding a book before him that was opened to a page covered in crests and seals. They were all similar in various ways, differing mainly in the decorated symbols and lines that seemed to be constructed of basic, overlapping shapes, but the most common similarities were the letters. Large, ornate capital letters, sometimes on their own, sometimes paired or tripled, but often repeated in what looked to be common symbols built into each individual crest.

Dean scanned them quickly, taking it all to memory, as he often did, and analyzing enough to catalog the similarities between what he'd seen and what he was looking at now.

“Close.” He said speculatively, and saw Castiel tilt his head slightly in confusion. Dean pointed two fingers, the crests of an L and an M printed beside each other in a sequence of nearly ten others. “These two, but together, it doesn't look like any of the paired versions have these in tandem, unless they continue onto another page. And what is this anyway? Silk? Are these hand drawn? How old is this book?” Dean let his fingers drag across the page and gently feel the paper, how it was softly glossier than any book he or his brother had ever owned. These were the kind of things that had been destroyed during The Purge, they didn't really exist anymore.

“It's old. And the pairing of those two particular letters is, unfortunately, what I had hoped to discourage from hearing. It is daunting to know it has been reiterated as truth.” Castiel gently closed the book, Dean's fingers still reaching to search within while processing the words at the same time. The beautiful, intricate crest of the letter C catching his eye and holding it before the pages closed their secrets from him entirely.

“Whoa, what? Why? Okay, I've had enough of this shit. Throw me out if you want to, but it feels like I'm gonna walk out of here with more questions than answers. What does any of this have to do with Sam?!”

Castiel slid the drawer shut, his palm flattening across the front of it a moment longer than was necessary before he sighed an uneeded breath of air. A very human thing to do. He stood to his feet, reaching suddenly for his own chest to slowly unbutton the navy frock coat that cleaned him up so nicely compared to the mismatched civvies and trousers Dean had yanked on that morning.

“Uh-” Was basically all Dean was capable of, watching in silent confusion as the TickTock removed his jacket and ascot before unbuttoning the top few buttons of his winged collar.

“You must understand, Dean, there are secrets within these walls that were never meant to escape it.” Castiel spoke as he moved, making Dean swallow hard and his eyes dart to the ruse of a door that suddenly felt like a large, clockwork trap. “Secrets that had been locked down here for good, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of mankind.”

“That sounds like it's way above my pay-grade.”

“And yet, here you stand.”

“Because my brother-”

“Has become involved. As have you, as unwillingly as it seems. Where were you when your brother went missing?'

Dean paused in surprise, having to actually think back before the absolute panic had started to sink in on where the hell he'd been off to in the first place before the hell of being alone had settled into his bones.

“Uh, the uh- the apothecary. For supplies. The alchemist there is a stupid son of a bitch, but he's got the best pyrophoric metals that gold and a good shipping fleet can buy. If he ever actually turns any of it into water, I'll eat my damn hat, but Sam uses them for the aether. Why?”

“What makes you think they waited for you to leave? You are a brilliant mechanic, a master of your trade, just as your brother is, was your delayed absence purposeful?” Castiel raised an attractive eyebrow, looking both proud and questioning in a strange mix of how someone should probably not be looking at a near stranger.

Dean swallowed, thinking back. “I'm not- well- yeah? No. Not...I mean, I got held up. We were supposed to meet for...” He rubbed his knuckles across his chest, feeling the familiar bumps and ache as they worried deep within his chest, the steady beat softer than he was comfortable with. “But I was late, and by the time I got there, they told me about the Snatchers. How he'd been completely outnumbered, and not even the Fuzz could get there in time. There were a lot of witnesses, but they were armed, and no one else could really do a damn thing.”

“They'd probably been expecting to pick up the both of you. I will not allow you to fall infinitely forward on your own. Tell me,” Castiel paused, segueing carefully to keep Dean from interrupting and somehow calculating his next words. “-have you ever heard of something called the _Primaries_?”

Dean's felt his eyes bulge. His breath caught and his heart skipped a few solid beats. Brain activity ground itself to a screeching halt.

Years of children's horror stories, of lessons learned to stay in bed at night, to leave the TickTock's and all of their pieces alone, or the Primaries would find you, and take _your_ pieces in their place...all of it flooding back with a wave of nauseating cold that Dean could have absolutely done without. He squared his jaw, blinking furiously as he fought to maintain eye contact, and Castiel took his body language as an invitation to continue.

“You have. I apologize, I've made you uncomfortable.”

“It's not exactly easy small talk, thanks, but it's a myth, a fairy tale. A story to scare kids and keep wayward inventors on the straight and narrow so they don't accidentally build human shaped bombs. One of the few, ancient, legends of horror that actually survived The Purge. I can't even tell you how many times I heard that word whenever I got my hands on a combustible-”

“And if they were true?”

Dean hesitated, every inch of him wishing to deny such a horrible thing, and completely unnerved at the twist in subject matter. His expression darkened. “That's not- What does that have to do with Sam.” He asked in what was more of a demand than a question.

“In the stories you know, what is said of those who made the Primaries? The chrononauts, the inventors who created them?”

“The Men of Letters?”

“Yes.”

“I- nothing much, really, just that they were mentioned as a lesson of warning of what _not_ to do. It's more about the Primaries themselves...how they'd been built on the end of the Revolutionary War but right before the Industrial Revolution to try and tame mankind. That it was all a great big secret because it was the first time they'd made TickTocks who could look- look human. They blended in, fooled us all, made us turn on each other, burn our own books and destroy our own families, somehow just barely avoiding being wiped out altogether. The Primaries were learning machines, _killing_ machines, but they _weren't real_. Everyone knows that Villiford created the first Synthetics, so there's no way that there were any walking and talking automatons that old. Wow, it feels really bizarre and wrong talking about this with a-” 

Dean stopped himself, trying hard not to finish his sentence but looking at Castiel like he hoped he'd get it anyway. It was pretty obvious he would, but the level of offense was incalculable.

“I understand, but this is important. You are correct that the Primaries were infiltration devices, but the children tales you know are vague and misdirected for the use of manipulation and corrective behavior.”

“Well yeah, I mean, that's how those kind of stories work. Are you- you aren't seriously telling me that they were real. I mean...that's some high level of Hell No. I- I can't...the history of the murder machines has been passed down for generations, and it isn't even that much information to begin with. If it was true, I would know it!”

“And like any old stories, they become warped and changed from the original truth. As a hunter, you should know better than to assume otherwise.”

“That's...okay, that's fair. You're not wrong about that.” Dean sniffed, his ego slightly mussed, but still unwilling to release this one denial in the slightest. “But what about your creator? The guy who's name is stamped on every TickTock from here to Timbuktu, are you trying to tell me that's all a facade? Why? My dad swore up and down that those legends were the ones that were _not_ real, I mean, he taught me how to hunt ghosts, monsters, zombies, things you've probably never even heard of, but not...not that. Never that.”

A few beats of silence settled between them, and as Dean felt the furious beat of his heart slow itself at the drop of adrenaline, there was an ache that reminded him of the reason he'd come there in the first place. He could hear the faint ticking of more than one clock in the delicate silence of the room, adding to his own. He took a slow breath, looking at Castiel and that infinite patience he didn't seem to run out of, because that's what the damn guy had. He was a TickTock, what was he in a hurry for, if anything?

“The symbol you found on the note, the crest that you are seeking and that I showed you, represents two of the most famous Primaries ever created.” Castiel said softly, but resolutely, like he was already arguing with whatever defense Dean would present to that statement. And oh, how he wanted to, after hearing something impossible like that.

Dean felt his throat dry out like cotton, his fingers sliding up and down the line of his suspenders without caring anymore about burning the skin of his thumbs. The pain grounded him better than reality could, and he jumped swiftly past denial.

“Names. I need names. I don't care what they are.”

“Michael and Lucifer.”

More silence, the air hanging heavily between them as Dean breathed in heavily through his nose, trying to process what he was hearing and whether or not it was a crock of shit. He knew the names, hell, everyone did, aside from what Castiel was claiming them to be, they were two of the base skeletons, the prototypes, that Villiford had created before mass production had begun on Synthetics. Two robots, of massive strength, power, and intelligence, forged to carve the way to a new future of man and TickTock, living together in harmony.

But it wasn't a clean history. After completion, humankind was a jealous beast, envious of what had been presented to them and discouraged with the perfection that it was not. It was all rumors now, or at least muddled history, but to those that knew or studied mechanics, like the Winchester's did, they knew what had become of those first few Synthetics after being forced into the spotlight. War had happened, and the greatest of the victims had been the poor, the less than human, and anyone who dared show sympathy for a Synthetic. Punishments of public humiliation and death were swift and terrible for anyone who showed any signs of affiliation. And the TickTock's themselves?

A kind word would be 'disassembly'. A better word would be 'destroyed'.

“Okay then, I'll use that.” Dean nodded, warring within himself to argue for all he was worth that it wasn't in the least bit possible that the original prototypes would be around anymore. Sam always had a tendency to ruffle the wrong feathers, stick his nose into the experiments of others whenever his gangly quantum nose started to get itchy and he needed a new project to try. Someone thought they were clever and thought using those names made them tough shit, but Dean wasn't impressed. He'd suffered way worse than wannabe's when it came to the angry forces of the supernatural.

“You cannot underestimate this threat.”

“I'm pretty sure I can.”

“These symbols are highly regarded as treasonous to the crown, Montarey had been knighted in his lifetime, none who knew them would disuse them so haphazardly.”

“You're arguing that no one would be stupid enough? That's hardly going to keep me from leaping to conclusions here.”

“But it should be. Your misinformation of the Primaries is enough to make you susceptible to a force that you are unprepared for, and you are going to need my help.”

Dean scowled, scrubbing a hand over his face with an angry hiss before he stalked a few steps away. He stamped his foot in agitation, ignoring the increasing pain, trying not to scream.

“What if I believe you. Let's say, for the sake of argument here, that there are two angry, ancient, mechanical myths running around, leaving their signatures behind while they snatch up every well known scientist, inventor and chrononaut they can find. Maybe even mechanics if they missed out on me. Okay. Fine. Then what? What's the point? If you're smart, immortal, and capable of doing basically anything better and faster than any human ever will, why would you even need the brightest minds that frail mortality has to offer you?”

Castiel's head canted slightly, his large eyes staring unblinkingly as he seemed to process the question much more than he'd been willing to before. Dean paced a few more rounds, unnerved at the threads he could see peeling from the worn quilt on the bed, and the obvious looking walk track on the rug beneath his feet. He obviously wasn't the first person to stalk this route.

“They aren't together.”

Dean stopped, his eyes moving from the floor to Castiel at the sudden statement.

“What?”

“Lucifer and Michael hated each other. They would not be working together. The point would be the greatest lesson that the Primaries learned through trial and error from humanity. Pain. Force humanity apart.”

“Why wouldn't they just fight each other?”

“They have a common enemy. If rallying humans to their sides has them arming themselves, fighting against anyone they distrust and dying in their name, neither one of them will ever have to lift a finger. They're both statistical masterminds, battle tacticians; they started a global wide battle once before, they can do it again.”

“How the fu- How could you know that?!”

“You knew what I was and of my association to the Villifords, it should not have been too difficult of a logistical leap to surmise that I would be affiliated with machines that were built by the founders of Synthetics!”

For the first time he could recall, Dean could see Castiel gazing at him with something nearing frustration. It was jarring, shifting his own reaction out of the panicked spiral he'd been heading towards and back into a focused path. He cleared his throat, trying not to offer to the TickTock that he was correct and that that was why Dean had showed up on his doorstep to begin with, but assuming hopefully that Castiel would know it anyway.

“What you're suggesting is war-mongering. From automatons. Based on a myth.” He said finally, flexing his half gloved fingers and feeling the worn leather creak satisfyingly before he hooked his thumbs into his belt.

“Yes.” Castiel's expression had cleared yet again, and Dean envied his programming.

“I don't think I even need to mention the Three Laws, but I'm going to anyway-”

“An important distinction to note, but nevertheless inconsequential. The Primaries are ancient, older than written memory, and were never programmed with The Three Laws of Robotics. Therefore they are not restricted by the protections to humanity, or each other, as we are.”

Dean stared, trying to piece something together that had been slowly working it's way through him since the moment he'd met and spoken to this machine. Before he'd even known he was a TickTock there had been something _off_, and then after, when he'd touched Dean's face and stared at that reflective painting like reincarnation was real and standing right in front of him. 

The Winchester's lived and died by their instincts, the gut trust result of living in a dirty, dark and unfair world that boiled with steam, chemicals and creatures that could absorb your soul out through your skin. Synthetics had always been predictable, except when they weren't, and Dean had nearly convinced himself that the beautiful machine he'd once called mother hadn't meant anything more to him than another ticking tool around the house. His dad certainly didn't feel that way.

Dean shifted his hips, feeling the reassuring weight of the guns held securely in the holsters across his back. Something wasn't adding up.

“The last time I was here, you told me that Montarey Villiford The First created Michael and Lucifer. Two of the original models to which all Synthetics today are based.”

Castiel stared blankly, carefully emotionless. “Yes.”

“The current, Professor Villiford, is the Third, right? The chrononaut's grandson.”

“Yes.”

“That's not ancient.”

“Dean.”

“You just said that they were Primaries, nightmare robots built back before The Fall of Everything, before The Burning of the America's, The Tsunami's of The East, The Purge, before written knowledge had been destroyed and outlawed for hundreds of years, that they were there for that. Not just created three generations ago. Is that what you're telling me?”

“Recorded time is no longer reliable in this circumstance, I cannot make the assumption that-”

“Yes or no, Cas.”

There was silence again, the soft ticking suddenly louder than anything that Dean had heard in weeks and it was a terror that he wasn't sure he wanted to feel. If what he was being told was true, if the horrors that had existed only in children's fairy tales and nightmare stories were real, then what the hell was he doing getting himself involved with any of it? Weren't the usual nightmares enough?

_Sam_. That's why he was involved. He needed to find Sam. Hell be damned.

Castiel took a step towards him, completely unexpectedly, and although Dean's fingers twitched to reach for his guns, he didn't move. The Ticktock never broke eye contact with him, reaching up towards the open buttons of his own collar and continuing to unhook the buttons he'd started, opening to reveal more pale skin beneath an extremely human looking throat and collar bone. Dean couldn't help it, his line of sight moved down, shifting back to Castiel's eyes briefly in bemusement as those deft fingers moved fabric.

“He found them.” Castiel said softly, his deep, resonating voice somehow filling the emptiness of the simple room. “As a child, orphaned and lost, Montarey discovered them by chance, and over the long period of his life, he built himself a clockwork family. He was a mechanic, like you. Brilliant, caring, methodical, and although they had long been disassembled, and were foreign materials, he was driven and intelligent enough to piece them back together. 

“It took him years, and cost him much, but of the many pieces there were four main prototypes that were carefully rebuilt and initiated. Constructed with completely new operating systems, they functioned with organic and chemical fuel that pumped through a circulatory system of tubes and veins beneath synthetic skin. Anatomically functional in every way. He reinforced their stainless steel skeletons with titanium, and they lived. Breathed. Spoke. Thousands of years of history were stored within their CPU's that human beings had burned to ashes only a few, short generations ago. Four Primaries, carrying all of human history's greatest discoveries and terrifying tragedies.

“It didn't take long to observe that they weren't stable. Humans had not treated them with kindness, and their memories were long and perfect. Montarey tried as hard as he could to reprogram them, to keep them safe, from themselves, from each other, from the world; but what is a Synthetic if it doesn't have a purpose? Their permanently programmed missions were ineffable, consuming and harrowing. He kept their blueprints, the notes, and the architecture of what he'd used to rebuild them, then he separated their reactors and locked them away. Here. Their secrets locked safely within them.”

Dean could feel the terror crawling up his spine, knowing this was information that he probably shouldn't be hearing but that his usual line of work generally expected an occasional nightmare or two when he was least expecting it. It never made it any easier. Castiel's hand shifted, pulling the stiff, starched collar of his shirt to the side to reveal a decorative crest tattooed on his skin, just over where his heart should be. The wings, the letter, the geometric shapes that curled around and formed into a unique shape that blossomed like a brand, and Dean realized that that was exactly what it was.

“Are-” He took a breath, hoping he wasn't as far in over his head as it felt like, yet. “Are you-”

“The four were Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel and Raphael. I am not a Primary.” Castiel stated confidently, pulling the fabric just a little further, so that the full tattoo was visible. His letter was a C, because of course it was, just like Dean had seen in the book he'd shown him, but in the corner of the letter, curled into very specific bends and angles was the number two. Something that had not been in the seal that Dean had seen on the note that was all he could find of Sam.

“I was not lying when I said Montarey created me. My base, my blueprints, are copied from Michael's prototype before they were altered into something uniquely my own. Once sentient, and programmed with the Three Laws, he allowed me to choose my destiny and discover free will as an independent being. I am a Secondary.”

Dean felt his breath catch. “Secondary? There were...I didn't-” How did no one know these things existed? How the hell had society continued on, completely clueless, while the murderous automatons of legend still existed beneath their noses, with copycat TickTocks living in their homes and holding their children?

“This is too fucking much, I don't know what to do with any of this and I don't know how the hell knowing it is going to help me find my goddamn brother!” Dean felt like he was at his tipping point, rubbing a hand across his forehead with the other one clenching his hip in frustration. He paced again, noting that Castiel was redoing the buttons on his shirt like he'd just given Dean all the info he'd needed and that was that. It wasn't, not even close, and everything he'd learned so far was just making the situation monumentally worse. He glanced back to the floor, the worn carpet glaring back at him with it's obvious stalk track of another furious thinker and making him scowl with reproach before a thought occurred to him.

“Wait, you said they were here? Villiford stored them here?”

“Initially.”

“That means 'not now', doesn't it.”

“No one had been in the vaults for so long, it wasn't until I received your summons that I even thought to approach it. There are a mere three keys in existence that can release the cage that once held the Primaries.”

“I really don't like how you use the word 'once'-”

“And one of them is myself. It was locked, securely, but the vault was empty. My brothers are gone.”

Dean threw his hands up, turning and heading towards the only exit he could see. “Well that is officially the only thing we have in common, now isn't it. Missing brothers. But on the plus side, _my brother_ isn't a raging, murderous TickTock from a kid's nightmare, so if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go save his ass while you work out the rest of this gigantic, historical mess.”

He stalked forward, reaching for the handle and turning it, but feeling little to no give with the deceptively simple looking door. Dean's logical brain and mechanical know-how knew that the door was intricate, woven into the fabric of the floor and the wall through complicated gears and locks that needed that special key to open and close, but he didn't want to turn and admit that he needed Castiel's help to get him the hell out of there. The room felt safe, it felt like a place where he could breath and speak without worrying about being judged. A place he could think and create, even. But the timing was completely terrible, and Dean needed to get himself on the next airship to Paris if he had any chance of meeting up with Singer's crew for some backup for this crazy.

The door obviously didn't budge, and Dean huffed at it, whacking his fist a few times on the wood and hearing a muffled thump that was absorbed by the thick metal of the steel on the opposite side. It was completely sound proofed. A safe room. He let his sore fist settle against the wood before leaning against it, resting his forehead and breathing in the smell of memories telling stories that weren't his own. 

Dean brought his free hand up to rub absently across the pain in his chest, an old habit, soothing himself and listening to the careful ticking that dictated the motions of his life. It wasn't much longer now. There were only so many rotations he had left.

“I believe I said that I'm going with you.”

Dean huffed a short laugh, shaking his head against the solid frame.

“The hell you are. A rich, house trained, dandy of a TickTock'll stick out like a gem dripping desert princess. The last thing I need is a giant 'Kill Me' sign walking around with no weapons experience and no humanity. No offense, but no.”

A dull ache throbbed beneath his ribs, and it belatedly occurred to Dean that he hadn't seen his brother for more than five days now. The last time he'd seen his key had been two weeks. It was something the brothers rarely did anymore, if they could help it, and Sam would _never_ let him go this long on purpose.

“Do you know why Montarey was called The Righteous Man?”

Dean rolled his eyes, turning around so that his back was against the door, feeling the outline of his guns dig reassuringly into his skin.

“I'm done with the history lesson. Seriously, I don't care.”

“You should. How long has it been since your mainspring was tightened?”

Dean felt his entire body freeze, like ice had been poured into his veins and solidified him in place. Tremors began in his fingers, his jaw, his knees, startled green eyes widening in panic as he looked at Castiel like he hadn't seen him before.

“What?” He whispered, his voice sounding completely foreign.

Castiel had the buttons of his shirt neatly together up to his throat again, but the rest he'd left laying against the fabric of a dull chair. He stepped toward Dean, cautiously, like anything faster would be nothing short of startling a skittish cat, never dropping the powerful eye contact he'd initiated with his words.

“By the age of one hundred and thirty, nearly all of Montarey's organs were clockwork. Mechanical. They would last forever, so long as one possessed a key and kept them wound and functional within a living body. He'd developed an unparalleled method of organic tissue replacement that was irrefutable, priceless, and he was going to make it available to any, for a fraction of the cost that human organs were selling and much more safely.”

Dean swallowed hard, unsure when his hand had gone back to his chest but hating the obvious tell, wondering when exactly he'd given himself away and how long Castiel could have possibly even known beforehand.

“But the sub-organization went bankrupt. Greedy corporations and ruthless mercenaries made sure that the foundations of Villiford's charity company would never reach maturity. That mass production would not proceed as planned nor ever be available to anything less than the wealthy. Rather than keep the snob district alive forever, he auctioned off himself alone, as a lottery, and locked the prints away until they could one day be distributed fairly.” Castiel closed the distance between them, and for some reason, Dean let him, staring unblinking and still as a deer in a hunt. 

He could smell him, the distinct ozone of petrol and sunshine, warm grass and steam, odd combinations of things that would normally be completely welcoming in any other circumstances.

“Five of his still perfectly functioning organs were separated anonymously after his death, the recipients never made public. His liver sold for a fleet of a thousand airships that now work for the company overseas. His lungs sold for four warehouses worth of titanium, the contents of which have since been melted down, and repurposed in the foundations of over five thousand synthetics, spanning over a decade. His kidneys were exchanged for the release of hundreds of imprisoned, wild animals, after their home had been decimated through wildfires. Not a single one remains in captivity. His pancreas sold for a solitary painting that had been found in the wreckage of the Old Wars of the Middle East, one of the few ancient pieces that remained from The Purge with forbidden language still legible. And his heart...”

Castiel paused and Dean stared with wide, terrified eyes. He couldn't have looked away if he'd tried.

“His heart sold for two silvers and four coppers. The contents of a young, homeless man's purse as he begged for the life of his dying brother.”

Castiel wasn't looking at his face any longer, long pale fingers had reached up and gently touched the fabric on Dean's chest, pressed with intent. Dean could feel the ghost warmth of the TickTock's palm through his shirt, staring at the face before him in disbelief even as Castiel stared at his chest like he could see right through it. He swallowed with difficulty, trying to fight through the bewilderment and fear with the intimacy of the moment. Of all the things that had happened in that room so far, this was the absolute least of what Dean had expected.

“Sam was trying to- we were- How do you know about that? How did you know it was me?” He asked quietly, his own fingers somehow moving over top of Castiel's and holding there, squeezing gently and feeling the telltale ticking of the mechanical pieces embedded within his own chest. The raised scars hidden beneath that no one else had ever seen but Sam and the doctors he'd woken up to, all those years ago.

“I didn't.” Castiel admitted, eyes flitting guiltily up to his before shifting back, a sadness passing over them that was so raw and full of emotion that Dean couldn't believe for a moment that he was looking at a Synthetic. “I could hear it, the first time we met...and I recognized it. I would know that sound anywhere.”

Neither one of them moved, the steady, ticking sound of Dean's heart somehow amplified through Castiel's fingers, reverberating with a constant, soothing sound that had been the single most calming beat that the Winchester brother's had ever known. The sound of life after trauma. A miracle that had kept their small family from falling to ruin.

After a moment, Dean realized he had his eyes closed, the feeling of a warm hand and the steady rhythm somehow calming his previously frazzled nerves. He opened them, and Castiel was a hair's breath away, too close for comfort, but somehow not close enough, the proximity strangely exciting as he heard the careful ticking speed up just the slightest bit.

“You didn't come here because of the symbol.” Castiel stated with the smallest bit of a smile, just barely visible with the curve of his lips and the crinkle of his eyes. It would appear blank if Dean wasn't so close to him, but he could see it now, the raw affection, and he shook his head.

“Decent gamble. Good hunch. Thought it might pay off.”

“Did it? You haven't gotten what you came for.”

He felt the fingers clench for a moment, pulling the scars on his chest just slightly before they slid down, leaving his own hand behind as Castiel reached into the pocket of his trousers. He never moved away and Dean didn't ask him to, eyes searching back and forth between that curiously emotional gaze like he might finally be able to figure out what he was really looking at.

“How are you even real?” He asked quietly, more to himself than to Castiel, and the TickTock didn't bother to respond, pulling a small, brass ring of keys from his pocket that jangled melodically as they were freed. 

He brought them forward, sifting a few to the side that caught Dean's eye and made him curious, but not enough to ask as he saw the one that was more familiar to him than any other piece of metal in the world. A perfect copy, something he had prayed existed when the only other one they knew of was kept safely in the capable, yet missing, hands of Sam Winchester.

Castiel held it up, his other hand moving to gently cup the side of Dean's face in a motion that was both unexpected but tender, and Dean felt the weight of everything start to crash around him as his weariness took it's toll. He sagged slightly, face tilting into Castiel's hand, but it appeared to have been expected because he remained standing and supported, even with the exhaustion. He'd never felt his heart so heavily as he did in that moment, and he really didn't understand why.

“Open your shirt.”

Dean obeyed, moving the hand on his chest to the buttons, unsure why he was allowing this vulnerable part of himself to be exposed, but knowing that it really was the reason he'd come. It had been Villiford's heart, so surely they kept duplicates of everything, even if he had to sneak in and steal it. Dean wasn't entirely sure what the plan had been after he'd come face to face with Castiel again, and he'd been so completely distracted with bad news that he'd lost any and all chances of forming any kind of a plan.

Without Sam, he wouldn't last much longer, and he wasn't good to anyone with an unwound heart. It wasn't something he could ask anyone else for help with, the rare circumstances leaving him isolated from doctors, alchemists, and healers. Anyone that could even possibly discover the secret was a threat. They'd been warned what the cost would be, and due diligence had been maintained, but a danger of this circumstance hadn't been accounted for. It should have been, but it wasn't.

Castiel slid one of Dean's suspenders down the side of his shoulder, a move that was far more intimate than Dean was expecting as he turned his head to the side to follow the motion. One of his guns slid to the floor with a loud clunk and Castiel rested his fingers against the other one, silently asking permission to let it go as well. Dean nodded, unsure why he was agreeing to this but feeling like his choices were limited anyway. He felt strangely captivated, open to be read, the vulnerability somehow shifting to something different that had expanded into a deeper connection. Like once Castiel had slid his way past the defenses of Dean's greatest secret, there was nothing left to hold up against him.

“Why were you carrying that?” Dean asked, noticing his breath coming out in ever shortening gasps as he yanked at the wrinkled collar of his shirt. Time was catching up to him.

Castiel noticed, grasping the cloth of Dean's shirt and pulling, nearly ripping the fabric down his arm to expose bare skin. Dean hissed through his teeth, warm fingers tracing down his collarbone as he heard the echoing tick with an unnaturally slow beat. He felt fuzzy, cold and drained, and even if he had walked out of that room with the information he'd been given, Dean is certain he wouldn't have made it very far.

The engraved, circular metal plating attached to his chest glimmered in the soft light, a reflective place where there shouldn't have been one across the wide expanse of Dean's chest. Castiel reached for it gently, staring with intent as he pressed the ornate latch in just the right direction in order to click it out of its lock. It swung open, as it always does, and Dean reached up to help as he always did, knowing how difficult it usually was for Sam to turn the key, but his fingers were caught and pressed against his chest.

“These are skeleton keys.” Castiel said softly, the low resonating of his voice hitting Dean in all the deep places he didn't think he had anymore. “I carry them because it is my continuing purpose to do so. Your assistance is unnecessary, please, allow me to save you.”

Dean huffed, amused but disoriented as he nodded.

“Sure Cas. Whenever you're ready, then.”

The metal plating swung the rest of the way and all of Dean's scars were suddenly on display. 

The large, burnt gash that traveled from navel to shoulder, where he'd received the wound in the first place. He didn't regret it, the child he'd stood in front of had lived. 

There was a single, straight, surgical scar where the doctor had split him open, trying desperately to get his heart beating again, and then eventually, where the organ was removed. The multiple points where screws had been inserted into his collarbone, his ribs and his sternum, holding the chest plate in place. Small, puckered wounds where wires and tubes had gone into and out of him, keeping him alive and stable, but slowly dying, without a suitable replacement for the ruined pieces of himself. 

And then finally, the five pointed, star-shaped scar over top, where he'd been sewn back together a few weeks later after being fitted and remade with a clockwork heart.

They were all faded, dark pink and white by then, splintering into small stretches of gathered scar tissue and tougher flesh that had been forced to regrow around the foreign pieces. Accepted, but out of place. A topographical map of mechanical and biological.

But in the middle of it all, protected beneath the chest plate, and unique to both him and the heart alone, was the open keyhole.

Castiel wasted no more time.

He brought the skeleton key up to Dean's chest, holding the fingers of his other hand gripped tightly in support as he pressed him up against the door of the room, and slid it into place with a soft clink.

Dean gasped, rocking forward, but Castiel didn't move, standing as strong and still as a statue as he made the first twist with a loud, ratcheting clank of gears and metal. The first of many. The strength of a Synthetic surpassed that of the average human being. Sam would usually have a far more difficult time turning Dean's key, although they usually didn't wait for circumstances to be so dire when it was cranked. Castiel had much less of an issue, continuing to turn and tighten the mainspring inch by inch, winding its way back to life in a way that looked like he'd been doing it for years.

Dean was a clammy, sweaty mess after only a few minutes, and if he'd been in a healthier quality of mind to think better of it, he'd be worried about leaning his face into the neck of a high class TickTock whose hands were currently embedded beneath the chestplate of his mechanical heart. But he wasn't, so he didn't, and he was pretty sure he was murmuring the poor guy's name, but Dean was completely past the point of caring about propriety.

Oxygen was returning to his brain, the vice grip in his chest was finally loosening, sensation was coming back to his hands and feet, and blood was pumping throughout the rest of his body as _life_ was resuming.

Castiel was still holding his hand, and they were practically chest to chest with the one side exposed, but neither one seemed in a hurry to move. Dean jerked and cried out when he felt the final crank, the donated heart beating normally and soundly, playing a rhythm that had become the song of his soul. He felt the key be removed, and the steel plate slowly close, gently clicking into place with another soft clink as it rose and fell with the familiar, uncomfortable pull of his breathing. 

Dean tried to believe that everything would be awkward now, picturing himself from a distance in this strange, hidden room, practically sprawled across the (albeit, good looking) family TickTock, a shaking and shivering mess. He tugged halfheartedly at his usual self defense, reaching for some kind of joke or quirk, but there wasn't much left in the well to pull on. Dean was tired, mentally and physically, couldn't remember the last time someone had held him like this, with such care, even if it wasn't an actual person. 

And did that even matter to him anyway? The first few years of his life had been spent in love with an automaton enough that he'd called her mother, so what in the hell had changed so much that things were different now?

He had changed, obviously. Because TickTock's didn't.

Dean groaned, a sad attempt at pulling himself together when Castiel seemed to be hell bent on making sure he wasn't. Fingers were moving gently through his hair, scratching softly at the neck before dragging back up. His other hand was trapped between their two bodies and there was an oddly surreal moment when he suddenly realized that he could feel Castiel's heart beating.

The soft, solid ticking, so similar, so familiar, and of course it would be. It had been carefully crafted by the same hands who'd made his own. In fact, this was probably the closest the two had been since...

Dean swallowed, unsure why that thought didn't bother him more than it did. In fact, it didn't seem to bother either of them. He hadn't come for this closeness, that was obvious, and pointing out the obvious probably wasn't the best idea in this circumstance since he was pretty sure Castiel hadn't planned on it either. He was a mechanic, he knew how these things functioned, how they were put together, and Dean could picture the proximity of the two clockwork pieces, ticking in tandem with each other, beating a rhythm in steady contrast within this room that had once contained them, and only them. These two hearts.

As if sensing the same thoughts, Castiel drew himself slowly back, giving Dean enough of a chance to gain his weight and balance as he took a step away. His perfect, black hair had been mussed, fluffing fetchingly to the side and he was looking at Dean with widened, blue eyes. Drinking up what was in front of him like it was the only chance he'd have to do so. 

And maybe it was; maybe after they left this room, all of the terrible news of the Primaries and the Snatchers and the empty cages and missing keys would come rushing back. The spell would break and they'd be the TickTock and the Mechanic again, parting their separate ways from the highborn service automaton to the airship captain's son who was off in search of his chemist of a little brother.

The story would go on.

But right there, in that room, interlocking suspension was taking place. The dimensions of relativity were twisted into a knot, rewound like a clock with a different face and starting over again, ticking backwards in time.

He hadn't moved his hands away, sliding one of them slowly up the front of Castiel's chest towards his neck and gripping around the back, the leather of his half gloves creaking as they tightened. Castiel's throat moved with an eager swallow, pupils blown as he tugged to insist on closing the distance, and Dean suddenly made the decision that he was done being rude. The guy _had_ just saved his life. 

“Can you control this?” He mumbled aloud, the mechanic in him fascinated, eager to learn more about this amazing machine as it responded to his touch. “What you're-” Dean cleared his throat with difficulty. “Is- is that on purpose? Can you control what you're doing right now?” 

He regretted it as soon as it all tumbled out, like it was something the common folk would even ask. 'Excuse me, sir, robot? Are you extremely turned on because of a switch, some kind of lever pulley hydraulic system of fluid distribution, or something else?' At what point does asking about someone's mechanical boner cross the line into inappropriate territory when they're looking at you like that?

Fortunately, Castiel didn't seem bothered in the slightest. Or he was, actually, the other kind of bothered, completely separate from the words, and physically focused entirely on Dean. Like Dean was everything he'd ever wanted to get his hands on, for who knows how long, in that quiet, lonely room.

“Can you?” His voice was soft vibration across Dean's skin, and a point well made.

Dean suddenly decided he wanted to give everything he could to this TickTock, whatever he asked for, anyway he asked for it, and with that overwhelming sensation, he closed the distance between them, sealing their lips together with a welcoming groan.

Castiel didn't pull away, in fact he did the opposite, fingers gathering up as much of Dean as he could get his hands on, angling his head in just a way that they slotted together in that sweet, continuous, perfect fit. If Dean had ever wondered before what it was like to kiss a synthetic, his wildest dreams could never have come up with anything to describe this, because it felt so _good_. So _human_ and reactive that he forgot entirely that the tongue that he was deeply encouraging wasn't biological. That the pressure across the softness of the lips was fabricated and mimicked to such an aching degree of humanity, that nothing truly real would ever measure up to this ever again.

Castiel kissed like he'd been programmed to do it, and the thought made Dean shiver, opening himself on a gasp as he felt nimble fingers scratch up across the one, unscarred nipple beneath his shirt before continuing up to cradle the side of his neck. Castiel pressed himself forward and Dean back, pushing the both of them into the door again and slotting them closer together. The want, the sensations of eagerness, there was so much in the body language that could be read, and every instinct in Dean was soaking it all in like it was an instruction manual, and he an eager student.

There was a sigh and a groan as Dean felt the hard, familiar drag of arousal press into his hip, Castiel's face suddenly pulling from his before trailing enthusiastically across his jaw to the side of his neck and continuing down from there. Dean felt his head fall back against the door with a dull thump, mouth slack and staring up at the ceiling without really seeing it as he felt his body jerk with sensation. It had been so goddamn long, it was embarrassing how much he knew he was starved for this. 

The accident had done more than destroy his heart, it had made him a pariah, an oddity that couldn't show it's true self for fear of revealing the mechanical truth within. Castiel _was_ a mechanical truth, he didn't care, or maybe he cared too much, either way Dean was completely on board. 

He slid his fingers between the stiff fabric of the TickTock's over starched shirt, popping a few buttons and winning himself a stretch of skin that he eagerly indulged in. Castiel made the most beautiful sounds, gasping closely into his ear and whispering his name with encouragement, like a request, like a command. Emboldened, Dean drew his hands upwards, releasing the remaining buttons, and Castiel drew back just long enough to shed the shirt like it had offended him, letting it fling off one arm to Lord know's where.

He was beautiful, perfectly sculpted, yet somehow not crafted to the complete flawlessness that one would expect from a Synthetic that had been created by human hands. There were freckles, blemishes, a mole above one nipple, a navel that wasn't fully indented that quivered at Dean's touch. Ropes of muscles twisting beneath skin that just barely showed the pinprick seams of where they'd been attached. The crest was a bold contrast of ink to the pale skin above his heart, but it looked no different from any other tattoo a man could buy himself on the streets of London. 

A Ticktock that had been created perfectly to be imperfect.

Hands were caressing Dean's throat again before they spread across his shoulders, Castiel soaking in the wandering gaze before he was kissing him desperately, licking into his mouth with heavy breaths as he moved to drag Dean's much simpler shirt down his arms. Free him from the constraints of his own clothing and finally get skin touching skin, without having to worry about what his partner would think of feeling a large circle of foreign metal embedded in his chest. The thought was intoxicating.

There was a sudden snap, and Dean full body flinched, jerking back and knocking himself loudly into the door with an awkward yelp of pain. He realized belatedly that his other suspender had just pulled hard enough to be released on one end, freezing the both of them of any further action like a jolt of electricity. 

Rubbing awkwardly and looking down at the small red mark that now lanced across his stomach, Dean barked out a sudden laugh. It wasn't like this was the first time it had happened, but the reality of the situation rushing in around him and the large eyed look that Castiel was giving him was instantly hilarious. He'd been wound so tight, stressed for so long, and now filled to brim with worry about Sam that it had nearly stopped his own heart, a cockblocking suspender was more amusing than it had any right to be.

Dean shook his head with a huff that he would never admit to sounding like a giggle, looking up to Castiel and grateful to see a relieved and affectionate smile just barely reaching into those ocean blue eyes. He reached up and pulled Castiel back towards him. The TickTock went, gently knocking their noses together, and Dean inhaled Castiel's unique scent that he didn't ever want to forget. He needed this, and he knew Castiel did too, probably for longer than he'd been alive, just existing here and waiting, waiting, waiting, eternally, living on for far longer than the person he'd been made for did. The saddest of tales on the edge of what could potentially be a nightmare hidden beneath the steam and oil functioning world.

Dean framed Castiel's face with his half gloved fingers and they rested their foreheads together, catching their breath, enjoying the moment before the spell was unbound and everything else would come crashing back in around them. They had this, for now at least. This would keep.

Castiel placed his hand on the metal chest plate, and Dean didn't cringe or shy away, or feel any of the usual self-disgust he'd come to associate with anyone touching him there. Something strangely new for him.The bones of those fingers were made of the same materials, after all, and Castiel traced the intricate design work that had been etched there, the two of them listening to the consistent, metronome sounds of two clockwork hearts.

“I'm not him.” Dean said softly, his voice unsure, but feeling like it needed to be said anyway. 

Castiel nodded.

“I know. He's gone. But his heart came back for me, so I'm going with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is, it just is. I haven't touched that first, short, one-shot in FOREVER, but this interesting storyline popped into my head within the same universe, so if there's any interest, I might just have to buckle down and flesh it all out. 
> 
> There's a foundation here for some pretty cool action and shit, a lot more of geeky scientist Sam (who is in the first story), and some good ol fashioned robot/man porn, so hit me up if you like.


End file.
